Solstice
by Aleanbh
Summary: Everyone loves to bask in the glory of Patrick Jane. But he is not the sun. Only Teresa Lisbon can see him as he truly is. Jane x Lisbon, stretching S2 up to and including Blue Bird.


**AN:** _A little mish-mash reaching from mentions of S2 up to S6 and a little beyond. I've come to the conclusion that my ideas for fics come to me directly proportional to the amount of uni work I have to do, so as it's the summer it took me a while to come up with something! I really hope you enjoy, please review!_

* * *

The attic is warm with midsummer heat as she enters. She calls out for Jane, and it is then she sees her laptop. It is then she sees _his_ laptop. She doesn't think before pressing the button. His face is on the screen, looking up to her, and it doesn't occur to her _not_ to press play. He becomes animated, starts to speak.

"_I'm looking for someone who.. someone I can trust. Someone strong, someone at peace with themselves, someone better than me. Someone who knows the worst side of me and still loves me."_

So that was that.

He was still looking for _her_. Years later and still all he is looking for is his wife. Everyone looks to Jane but he looks past them all. He's looking for his wife, but she is long gone. It's probably time for him to move on, Lisbon thinks, at the same time knowing that he can't. Not until Red John.

Lisbon has caught herself recently, looking at Jane in a new way. She's not sure if _he _is aware of this or not, but whether he is or no, this insight into his thoughts sums it up. Either way, he's not looking at her.

She's looking to him but he's looking past her, into the past, looking back to what he has lost.

Stalemate.

One of them has to move on in order to find happiness. Jane can either move on from his haunted past or she can move on from him.

Lisbon is sure he won't move on until Red John. She's pretty sure she won't move on from him. The only time she's had to deal with the possibility of not having him around, the suffering only lasted an hour or so, and that had been bad enough:

* * *

When Minelli hands the Red John case over to Bosco and Jane says he's quitting, Lisbon feels a shocked confusion in the pit of her stomach. It feels as though someone's pulled the rug from under her feet and as she scrambles to retain her composure, she is suddenly aware of just how much this man brings to the job. These last few years, she'd thought they'd gotten closer, nearly friends. She's not naive, she knows he's seeking vengeance but she'd fancied herself – and the team, _and the team_- as a new chance for him, a chance to move on. But here he was throwing it away. It clearly wasn't to him what she'd thought it had been, what it had appeared to be to her.

_"No disrespect, Boss,"_ Rigsby says later, _"but we need him."_ She hates that he's made them think they can't do this without him; hates that they feel they can't do this without him when they'd been getting on just fine before he had _ever_ arrived. It makes her feel like it is _he_ who is running this team, not her, and she hates him for it. All her life she'd been waiting for something she was _good_ at, and she was _excellent_ at this, even leading her unit at such a young age, but then Patrick Jane had waltzed into their lives and now it seemed that by taking him on she had unknowingly sacrificed her position and potential simply to be little more than his handler. And she could barely do _that_, it would seem.

And so Patrick Jane becomes the main attraction of their unit. There is a hushed curiosity toward him throughout the CBI; Lisbon sees it out of the corner of her eye as she walks her team out the door, briefing them on some God-forsaken case, she sees it in the cautious disbelieving incredulousness of local law enforcement, in the straying eyes of unhappy widows, even in the eyes of her own team. It is not the loss of attention Lisbon mourns, but the loss of control. She doesn't blame him for it, it's just a fact. Jane _shines_. He steals attention even when he's not looking it. People gravitate towards him and he works it to his advantage every time. Perhaps it was rooted in the showbiz lifestyle he'd enjoyed as a child, perhaps it came from regularly being the smartest person in the room, no doubt encouraged by the reactions he received due to the charm of his twinkling eyes and exuberating confidence. Whatever the true reason, everyone but Teresa Lisbon seemed to bask in his light.

Only she sees the truth, the darkness. Patrick Jane is one in a million, perhaps both the most infuriating and delightful man she has ever known. He is all of this and more, but he is not the sun.

If anything he is the moon: inconstant, ever-changing but somehow always _there_, seen by all but always alone, removed. As the moon, he accompanies her through to the dawn on occasion, a comforting, lingering presence as she works through the night, unwilling to leave her alone. He is beautiful to her then, illuminating; but then Red John will come with his terrifying force, reminders of his past will come too, and Patrick clouds over, his true self hidden from her view, removed from her sight and from her care.

As with the moon, Teresa knows she sees only the parts Patrick wants her to see; for every crescent of beautiful lighted truth she sees from him, she knows there is another, darker. which she just cannot see, and so she is blinded by those truths she fails to see, the multitude she never sees. But despite all the people around them who believe him to be the sun, she knows that his moonbeams shine only for her – illuminating. If only he could let her be his mirror so he could see his own beauty revealed when he does show himself to her, to see how beautiful it all could be. If he is not the sun in their relationship, if he is the moon, she wonders if maybe _she _is the sun. She doesn't shine like he does, but she shines better with him around. He makes her shine. She wonders if she is the sun simply to light his moon, to give him the ability to light up as he does, to give him the chance to move on.

When Jane leaves for Las Vegas, it breaks her. It breaks her. She blames herself for a long time. She should have seen this coming, maybe. She should have stopped him. She thought they'd been making progress but he'd always been that little bit removed from her, and try as she might she could not bridge the gap. Then she stops blaming herself. She'd done all she could. Maybe it was time. She'd been praying for years that he'd find the strength to move on. Maybe this was him, moving on. She tries to let him do so. It's not the way she'd have wanted it, but she tries her hardest to let him go, to move on the way he wants to, even if it's breaking her to do so. But she can't let go. She dials his number again and again and many messages are left. They cover all the cursed emotions of those six months: whispered urges to come back, angry impatient pleads, quiet concern, desperate bargaining, negotiating- anything she thinks might bring him back.

Of course when he does come back she hates him once more for his cruelty, and then it's all a confused mess of tricks and plays and cons and lies and secrets and jutting out from it all one whispered stolen declaration spoken too soon, neither of them ready to own up to their shared truth just yet. And she hates him for saying it, and for denying it, but then in his moment of need he takes her hand, and once again she is determined to save him, and the start of that is welcoming him back into the fold with open arms, or at least for this moment, an open hand to hold.

And _oh_, how he holds it.

They move on together then, make it clear they're the truest friend the other has ever had, without really saying it – but of course, they're masters in the art of not saying things by now; and they're only going to get better. Red John threatens and threatens until he threatens no more and for the first time Jane has a real chance of moving on with his life. And she has to move on too. The CBI is gone, Jane is gone. Cho is going, and the Rigsbys won't hang around long without them. Life is going on, and she has been left behind.

So she goes too.

Washington is different, but in some way, nice. She doesn't shine so much here, and at times she yearns for the challenge of the fast-paced, conflicted CBI, but at other times she finds herself thrown a little off kilter when her requests and suggestions are taken on board and trusted immediately with very little questioning. It reminds her of a time before Jane, but that thought just makes her sad. Her 'Before Jane' era was the calm before the storm: a little dull, a little more peaceful. The 'Jane' era was a tumultuous, beautiful almost-decade of her life, something she never wanted but loved just the same. This 'After Jane' era was the hardest. For years she'd imagined a life without Jane, those times he had threatened to quit, when she'd been threatened with the sack, when he had disappeared off to Nevada. She had imagined the possibility of a life without Patrick Jane; had imagined it well. She had never imagined it would be this hard.

And then he comes back, as it seems Jane always does, and she's faced with a choice, and of course she chooses him. And of course it is wonderful to see him, to hold him close, but she feels he is taking her for granted and for more than a moment she is tempted to turn him down, but this is _Jane _and this is _Cho_, and this is not the CBI but it might be as close as they'll ever get again and she says _yes_.

_This could be it_, she thinks to herself as she looks around her empty Washington home and pulls the door out behind her one final time. This could be it. This could really be it. Red John is gone, Jane has had two years' respite and she has been far removed from it all. This could be it; moving on, with Jane. Jane and Lisbon, Lisbon and Jane, taking on a new city and a new life, together. _Moving on._ The thought gives her the confidence to leave Washington State behind.

And then she finds this _isn't_ it. As much as they hate it, they've had two years apart and while it feels like nothing has changed, they need time to grow into each other again. It feels like they're just getting there when Marcus Pike arrives onto the scene and before she knows what's happened, Lisbon is considering another move away.

Moving to Washington D.C. means moving on with her life forever; it means moving to a new, definite and guaranteed future together with Marcus. She'd moved to Austin for so much less with Jane, for the slightest chance with him of everything Marcus is offering her. So why does this feel so wrong, she wonders.

Maybe it's a step too far, a step too soon.

She wants Jane, but she needs _someone_, and soon. Perhaps she'd misjudged Jane's words in that video so very long ago now. Maybe he would never move on from Angela, and in the blink of an eye her chance to move on from him would be gone and she too would be alone. She deserves more.

And _this_ is more, but somehow it's still not enough.

Later when she considers her situation, she thinks she might have gotten off the aeroplane even if Jane hadn't arrived in that last, desperate moment. But the truth is, he does arrive, and she does leave the plane.

The cool air and bright lights hit her as she steps out of the aeroplane. Moments later the door closes behind her and a member of ground staff rushes towards her to accompany her safely away from the airfield. But that moment seems to last a lifetime as she stands at the top of the steps: the coolness of the air on her skin, the massive sense of relief at their exchange. It feels as though she's let out a breath that has been consuming her from the inside for a very long time.

She thinks of Marcus as she descends the stairs to the ground, but as she takes the final step onto the concrete, she realises she has already moved on. He will do so soon. He will move on and find someone to make him shine. She has moved on from him, and it sounds callously cruel to say so so soon, but Teresa realises too that she'd never really moved on from the idea of being with anyone else _but_ Jane.

It is near morning before she sees Jane, and even as his lips touch hers, she can't quite believe that this is happening.

It is near noon when they leave the airport, hand-in-hand once more. The sky is clear and the sun is shining and beating down on them from high in their Texan sky. Abbott is still inside and Cho has disappeared and for this moment, they are alone.

Jane takes his hand from hers and cups her face between his hands. It's a wonderfully confused notion, but she loves it. He's looking at her like he wants to say something but she speaks before he can.

_"I am in love with you, Patrick Jane,"_ she says, the first time she has spoken the words aloud.

Lisbon had wondered for many years her position in relation to Jane, and wondered how he saw her before the truth had found her, but in this moment she knows how he sees it. To him, she _must_ be the sun because now as he looks at her, beaming down at her, she sees how he shines now for her, how she _makes_ him shine. She sees all the beauty of the world reflected in his eyes and he is looking back at her like she is his whole world, his sun.

She can see this is what he believes, but she has figured it out a long time ago. She is _not_ his sun. She is not his sun, but she _is_ his solstice. _She is his solstice_. She is, and always has been, his solstice; his turning point, his point of change.

And they're changing for the better.

* * *

Lisbon stands up from Jane's chair, closes the lid of her laptop. She collects it into her arms and listens to her footsteps echo through the empty attic.

She is almost back downstairs, when she meets Jane on the stairs, cup of tea in hand, heading for the refuge of his attic.

"Lisbon?"

"Jane."

He doesn't say anything, so she laughs forcedly.

"Jane, you thief, you robbed my laptop."

"Oh."

He shrugs.

"Had to be done. Means to an end, and all that."

Lisbon nods.

"Don't know where you're going with that tea," she says eventually. "The heat is stifling up there."

"Yes," Jane muses. "Midsummer's Day after all. The Summer Solstice."

Lisbon nods.

"Hard to believe," Jane goes on, "it's shorter days and longer nights from here on in."

"It's hard to believe a Summer like this could ever end," Lisbon says.

"Oh I don't know about that, Lisbon," he's saying now. "Solstice is a time of change, a turning point that can't, that _won't _be ignored. There's always room for change, I think."

Lisbon nods.

Jane winks as he goes on past her up the stairs.

"See you later, Lisbon, dear."

"See you, Jane," she says, and continues down the stairs.


End file.
